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Chapter 9: Lavoriamo Insieme (un'ultima volta)

Tony could feel his hands tremble as he spoke. He was so angry he could barely utter a straight sentence. For two years, he had foolishly thought that Steve's disappointment would lessen, or that he had become immune to said resentment, but he was wrong on both accounts.

Tony was so tired of it all.

"Tony…" Bruce began.

"No, Bruce, that's it. That's my request in return: after this, I'm out. I will find myself a small place somewhere… Not a farm, that's Barton's area, a place like the workshop below, and after that, well, you are still welcome to discuss your projects with me, but myself? No, no, no, I've had enough. After Ultron, I tapped out, remember, Rogers? This time, consider me dead." That would happen soon enough. He would resolve this entire mess, keep a low profile, and nobody would notice. His two-year plan was still intact. He would just have to find a way to stop Pepper, Rhodey and Bruce from caring too much. He had almost succeeded with Pepper and Rhodey during the Palladium poisoning; he could do it again. There was enough time left.

"Tony…"

"Nope, you don't get to do that, Rogers. Make up your mind: Stark or Tony. I don't give a damn either way. " Yep, his hands were still shaking and Bern Fridge was asking him whether he needed a soda for his blood sugar. "Let's go."

"I'm sorry," said the super soldier earnestly, looking like a kicked puppy.

"Yeah well, we can't change the past, right?" God only knew he had tried. "JARVIS, ready to go home?"

"Yes, Sir."

JARVIS was worried, Tony knew. He had not heard what the AI had actually said to Steve, but JARVIS' fury had been more than just palpable.

"See you on the other side, Buddy. Make sure they know I'm coming, but keep us off the grid."

"Of course, Sir."

"Make sure who knows?" Bruce asked.

"Stark Tower. JARVIS will know what to do, no worries. He can hack himself back into the tower without anybody knowing about it." He moved towards the door that separated his apartment from his workshop. The other men did not even try to stop him, and quickly followed him. "See you soon, children," said Tony fondly. He was very well aware of how confused they all were by his anger. They were a bit like smart pets or little children: knowing that something was wrong, but not really understanding why or if they were responsible. He hated that confusion. It reminded him too much of his own childhood – the awful feeling of constantly disappointing his father, but not knowing what he could do to make it right. He never wanted anybody to feel like that. "Love you."

With those words, he left the apartment. He gently patted DUM-E, Butterfingers and U and told them the same thing. DUM-E tried to prevent him from leaving, and it took him nearly ten minutes to detangle from his robots. It got worse once they realized with whom he was leaving. Butterfingers' and U's primary directive prevented them from helping DUM-E or from blocking Tony as he quickly moved between his oldest robot and the leader of the Avengers (even though he doubted Steve would do anything to hurt DUM-E, not after everything he had learned today), but he was aware that they did not approve. He grabbed Bucher TV and asked Bruce to open and lock the door behind them. He then brought Bucher TV to his neighbor, a retired electrician, who was all too happy to help whenever Tony asked him for a favor.

While he did that, Barnes pulled up the car they had rented. He threw his bag in the trunk and they left for the airport. He was still fuming by the time they entered the plane, and had not said a single word to either of them. He continued to work on Bruce Banner Laptop to learn more about the code, but was otherwise silent.

Problem was, the others thrived in silence. Bruce preferred the quiet even, which made sense because of the Hulk, but was puzzling because he obviously wished to come by and visit him after all this was resolved. From what Tony knew, Barnes had lived in silence for over seventy years and he did not strike Tony as a very talkative person, and then there was Steve who had perfected the art of silent disapproval, which had been Howard's most sophisticated ability. This time, Tony sensed no disappointment or anger from the silent man but misery. The other man looked completely dejected and Steve Rogers Nokia was confused and concerned. Captain America Communication Device radiated all the censure Tony had come to expect from its owner, Bruce Banner Phone sensed that Tony was tense and was still disappointed that the physicist had not started to play the Color Thief game. Winter Soldier Arm was ready for a fight because of all the tension, but he really did not want to fight Tony.

'Please, I don't want to hurt him, please don't make me hurt him…' Arm begged Barnes who could not hear him.

"How are the Minivengers?" he blurted out, as the jet took off. He could not take this. He hated the quiet. He always had. It was suffocating.

"Who?" Steve asked, confused.

"Barton's kids." He had not interacted with them much, but he had certainly felt like the rich uncle who could provide them with all the cool toys. Of course, Hawkeye had refused even before the Civil War. Now, he probably was not allowed within five hundred yards of the property. Hell, he had nearly taken the property during their feud in the hopes of scaring Hawkeye away. Needless to say, it had not worked. "How're they doing?"

"Fine," replied Steve, still confused. "They are good. Arno made sure they could go to the best schools."

Tony froze. Clint had never let him pay for anything. He had offered, more than once actually. Tony had not known he could feel both angry and devastated at the same time.

"'Course he did," his voice cracked. Frantically, he was looking for another topic: one that would make him feel less like he had just been gutted.

They had been his friends, damn it! He had known the price, and he had fucking paid it! No matter what happened after, they had been friends before.

He hoped.

If JARVIS was right…

No, he was not. They were not just colleagues; they had been his friends before the Civil War. His gut painfully twisted into knots.

"Do the others know I'm coming?"

He really did not want to meet Thor again. The demigod had every right to rip him apart; after all, Tony had stolen his hair and used it to create a clone in his image with the help of… He had no excuse. At least, none that counted. Goliath' blood was on his hands. He had not intended it, but he had been ready to take the risk.

Suck it up, Tony. You are the Merchant of Death, remember? One death more or less hardly counts.

It did, though. It really, really did. Every single one of them: 143. Tony knew all their names and the names of their families if they had any. He had killed them. It did not matter that he had not pulled the trigger: his decisions had killed them. If only… The engineer knew wishes were for naught, but he continued to run the scenarios: not to ease the guilt, but to find a way, any way, that could have prevented all these deaths. It probably was not a very good idea, because he did not know what he would do if he found the perfect scenario: one that would avoid the whole mess in the first place without sacrificing the Avengers in the process.

"Yes, we told the team: Natasha, Clint, Thor, Sam, Vision and Wanda… They all know," replied Steve. "Or rather, they know we came here."

Not good.

"Then Arno knows too," said Tony.

"We didn't…"

"Do you think I'm stupid, Rogers?" interrupted the engineer, past caring what Steve may think of him (Keep telling yourself that, Stark). "He knows, because he's a lot smarter than you are."

"I made sure he couldn't access the logs, or the flight plan and I… couldn't have told him more clearly what we were doing if I had plastered it on the front page of the New York Times," concluded Bruce with a sigh, slowly rubbing his temples.

"Nope, you couldn't have," said Tony gently. Bruce was one of the smartest people on the planet, giving the former billionaire more than one inferiority complex whenever they ventured in the physicist's countless fields of research. However, the man should have known better than to allow Steve to take the 'let us be open and honest with everyone' route. It was recipe to disaster in cases such as these. Tony gestured for Bruce' phone, which was given to him immediately.

"Tony, what are you doing?" Steve asked.

"Trying to keep us all from dying… or, well, given the serum and the Hulk, trying to protect myself and the SHIELD pilot," replied the engineer as he typed in his brother's phone number.

'Bruce, what…?

"It's me, baby brother," announced Tony, smiling a little, which turned into a smirk when he saw Steve's widened eyes. Yep, he could still shock the other man.

"Tony…" began Arno, but he cut him off quickly.

"Don't do it, Arno, nobody has been hurt yet, and we can figure this out. We can fix it," Tony assured him.

"You are on that flight…"

"Yep." Relief coursed through Tony. His brother had messed up, but he was not some villain trying to destroy the world. He was just desperate, and that was something Tony could understand all too well.

"I promise, we'll figure it out."

"If the new generation doesn't come out in time…"

"We have enough of that, little brother. I promise. We can make it work. Nobody is going to get hurt."

Arno's responding chuckle sounded awful, nervous and so terribly afraid.

"I saw the footage, Tony. I know what Steve does if he perceives you as his enemy." Tony opened his mouth, but Arno cut him off. "They almost killed you."

"Not without plenty of provocation, I guarantee you," retorted Tony, forcing himself to smile reassuringly (because he knew his brother had turned on the video camera; Bruce Banner Phone was kind enough to tell him that). He looked up only to see Steve avert his gaze and Barnes' jaw tense.

"Don't you think risking a worldwide blackout because of faulty Stark technology is provocation enough? That is if nothing worse happens. If he thinks I went behind his back…"

"You did, but he's not going to hurt you, I promise," Tony gently reassured the younger man, who was not a kid anymore, but he sounded very, very young.

"See you in a few hours, little brother. Let's meet at Stark Tower."

"Would he have tried to kill us?" asked Steve after Tony hung up the phone.

"Nope. But he would have done his best to disappear while you swim your way back to the shore. He probably hesitated the first time around, because he knows you, but yes, he probably realized that you would return to stop him, and… he seems afraid of that. Understandable, mind you. I have opposed you once, and have the scars to prove it."

Barnes stood up and approached Tony, who shrunk back in his seat. The former assassin froze and Winter Soldier Arm instantly blamed himself for Tony's obvious fear of Barnes.

Damn it, he had such a weak spot for that piece of machinery! He forced himself to relax and gave the other man a questioning look.

"From the beginning, Mr. Stark, please."

"What?" replied Tony; unsure what the other man wanted from him.

"I am not stupid, but God only knows, you make me feel this way every time we are in the same room. What was Arno Stark about to do, and how did you know about it? Step by step, please."

"Bruce blocked Arno's access. Arno got suspicious, and apart from Clint and Natasha, the Avengers aren't trained keep secrets from a technological genius, so he found out about Bruce finding the faulty code and you leaving the US to ask me for help. He probably thought about blowing you out of the sky the first time around, but didn't because… he knows you and probably likes you, but he also knows how you operate against threats, and with this new tech, he became the enemy, so he prepared to have this plane crash over the Atlantic, knowing it would not kill either of you, but would give him enough time to either clean up the mess or disappear."

"What about the pilot?"

"He thought you'd kill him, Barnes. Believe me, that knowledge is enough to become slightly irrational." The Winter Soldier alone was one of the most dangerous people on the planet; Captain America and the Winter Soldier together were invincible and, if you were the enemy, nothing short of terrifying. However, it did worry Tony that Arno had been ready to risk killing an innocent human to save his own life. Yes, Tony was a murderer, he had traded the lives of other people to save his friends, but if this had been about himself… if his death could have stopped the Civil War? He would have slit his own throat with a kitchen knife before JARVIS could alert anybody. But then, Tony really did not want Arno to get hurt, and was glad he had a sense of self-preservations unlike some idiots he called his friends (Hi, Bruce. Hey there, Steve!). Ultimately, the whole mess showed him that Iron Man should have been buried long ago, preferably after the Chitauri invasion. He doubted that Iron Man would recover from this.

"I see," said Barnes thoughtfully before he looked at Tony. His eyes were as open and honest as Tony had ever seen them. For a moment, the engineer could see that young man who had followed Captain Steve Rogers to the end of the world and beyond. It was strangely humbling. "I won't apologize for what happened, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry we were on opposite sides, and…" the super soldier avoided his gaze. "I should have asked for your forgiveness long ago, but who could ever forgive the murderer of their parents?"

Tony froze in his seat. Old hatred and anger coiled in his gut so viciously, it surprised even him, only to come to the realization that he was the last person on Earth with the right to judge.

"Edwin Jarvis," he whispered, both a question and a statement. He had never wanted to think about it; how terrified they must have been in the face of Hydra's best assassin.

"He stood between your parents and the Winter Soldier," Barnes' voice sounded, if possible, even softer than his own. He did not meet Tony's eyes. "The Asset respected him for his honor. He was a brave man."

"He was everything," Tony loathed the near-silent sob that escaped him; more than twenty years, and it still hurt like a knife in the gut. "I know it wasn't you, Barnes. I read the fucking files a hundred times. I know what they did to you, but Jarvis and mom, they didn't… I hated you." Winter Soldier Arm whimpered like Tony had just hit him with a wrench, and Barnes looked just as desolate. "Even back then, I knew that was wrong, but I'm not nor have I ever been a saint. It's so much easier to hate a specific face than the organization behind it." Tony lowered his head. Barnes had been brainwashed and tortured in a way that made his time in Afghanistan seem like a vacation. The soldier was a victim not unlike his parents and Jarvis, but knowing that logically and forgiving the person who had killed the people closest to him were two different things. "Give me time, Barnes. And stop it with the self-loathing, both of you!" he addressed the artificial arm sternly. "It gives me a headache."

Barnes' surprise was only matched by the look on Steve's face.

"Tony…"

"I'm not a saint, Rogers," repeated Tony, his voice a growl. "Don't push it."

"Not a saint, perhaps," replied Barnes seriously. "But a far better man than you give yourself credit for."

Tony snorted, and focused back on Bruce Banner Laptop. Said owner approached the engineer, and sat down next to him. When a hand hesitatingly touched his shoulder, Tony looked up from the screen and stared at the arm that initiated the contact (Bruce never did that! He accepted friendly touches, but he never initiated them). Bruce smiled shyly and with so much understanding and compassion, the engineer almost started bawling right then and there. Instead, he leaned against Bruce and continued to work. If nothing else, his friendship to Bruce would be rekindled after this.

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